5 Steps to Effectively Manage Enterprise Risks

To effectively articulate all the factors going for a brand and engineering them into a competitive advantage and a resounding ROI are the thoughts that besiege the mind of any founder on a daily basis. To achieve this goal, however, a lot of effort, odd hours that occasionally run into days and weeks must be put in.

In order to sustain all the hardship, the personal sacrifices, the constant uncertainty, the endless path to financial stability, the existential threats, and the terrifying decisions that have been sunk into your enterprise, you must constantly be on your toes to ensure that you are in tune with the world best practice. As you brainstorm on the possibility of making your brand a household name, you need an efficient Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) to be put in place.

ERM is a framework for you to assess your brand overall exposure to risks, in order to make timely and well-informed decisions as a way of troubleshooting and in an effort to mitigating and ensuring that crises are rendered dead on arrival as they hit the enterprise. It will amount to playing the ostrich game for any brand that does not envisage moments of crisis and has set out programmes to tackle them.

As an enterprise manager or founder, these 5-cocksure steps are what you need to effectively checkmate and then go on to manage the risks when leakages occur.

1. Acknowledge your enterprise susceptibility to risks

Your enterprise is prone to risks and you need to religiously acknowledge that fact. It may be a hard pill to swallow but it’s the absolute truth. You will be caught pants down with an open chin for the sucker punch if you refuse to acknowledge the propensity of your enterprise to risks.

It’s only when you believe that a risk may occur that you can fashion out a programme to mitigate it wholeheartedly. Ordinarily, you will only be paying lip service to the effort of putting ERM in place.

Any risk event that can impact your enterprise is foreseeable and manageable. If you allow yourself to be hit below the belt it can only be because you practically refused to do the obvious. You did not give room to the fact that you are susceptible.

2. Identify the risk zones

Risk mapping all the different components of the enterprise is necessary for an effective risk management. The zones that are crisis-ridden should be isolated for proper attention since it will amount to a colossal waste if resources are distributed over all the sections instead of to the particular point that is necessary.

It’s only when you know where the risk comes from and the nature of the risk that any action you take to mitigate or manage it can be effective. Every risk will have a definite format for its management. Some risks may be technical in nature and only those who are technically inclined will be drafted to manage them.

3. Proactiveness

It won’t be to the benefit of the enterprise if you have to wait until something has happened before you go about seeking for ways of tackling the problem. Adequate measures must be on the ground at all times. It may be necessary that a special team that is well trained should be in the employ of the enterprise.

With the world having gone tech-savvy and the IOT virtually taking over, the enterprise must be well equipped and manned with people knowledgeable in IT. Finances should not be spared in ensuring that the enterprise has the best hands on deck.

The team should be able to work out ERM programmes that hinge on averting or exploiting risks to the favor of your enterprise. The team should be encouraged and rewarded appropriately as an inducement to identify potential risks before they arise as this will enhance a left shift that will be less costly and also match set objectives.

4. Securing communication infrastructures

Communications technology is daily becoming more complex and this has made it a risk-prone section especially with hackers and fraudsters roaming the internet. There is the absolute need for enterprise-grade security to ward off risks from these baddies.

Around the clock video monitoring of the enterprise is a step in the right direction to oversee and forestall risks. Full encryption of files and data will also go a long way in warding off risks and your data center should only be accessible to highly vouchsafed members of the staff.

Effort should be made to have very strong passwords to computers in the enterprise. It is tactically important to ensure that strong emphasis is placed on disaster recovery since it’s possible to experience a complete failure in the main production facility.

5. Outsourcing

When the enterprise needs help and support, you must go for it. Outsourcing may be a very good idea since the enterprise may not afford to have all the required manpower on ground. Wherever the best hands are, you can easily access them to have the best for the organization.

ERM should not be seen and must not be taken lightly unless you want to jeopardize the reputation and competitive advantage the enterprise may be enjoying.

The internet has afforded the world the status of a global village and a click will get you help from anywhere.